Beads of Blood

I’ve been a bad girl, haven’t I? With how long it took me to post again I should be strung up, but you know how life goes. I’m one chapter away from being done the third book in the DOW series. It does indeed look like the end, even though there’s always room for more. A kind of tragic, yet happy ending. Not everyone can get their fairytale, I suppose.

It turned out way way longer than I had imagined. I still have editing to do, a lot of cutting, a lot of grammar work, but I’m looking forward to it.

I finally lowered the price of my first book now that the third book in the series is well on its way to coming out. I have a few people who said they were looking forward to it, and I’m happy to deliver it, finally. I’ve also been anticipating working on another series. Never would I dream about working on two simultaneously. There was that long one month break I took from the DOW series to write Witherheart, and even though it only took me a month, now I’m looking back on it as being sort of irresponsible.
But I like Witherheart.

I do have a title for my third book. Beads of Blood. I’ve yet to work on the cover page, but I’m trying to get that out as soon as possible so that the public has an image to associate with the book. Plus, I just love doing cover art. I would have just been a freelance cover artist if I didn’t enjoy writing so much.

The third book should be out around Christmas, hopefully. I’ve been working very hard for that goal, but time is just flying by so quickly. But trust me, if this wasn’t something I enjoyed with all my heart, I wouldn’t be doing it.

My Inspiration, Witherheart, and the Third Book

I just did a four day free promo out of the flipping blue. That's because I had been waiting for two or three months to put Witherheart out and set up an email signup on my blog. It was so funny, because I never checked how many days I had left in the KDP Select. It turns out, I ONLY had four days left, and exactly FOUR days of free promo available. I did what I had to do.

I got over a thousand downloads for those four days, so I'm not complaining, but I simply wish it was more. I'm so very happy to finally have Witherheart out, by the way. I reread the whole thing two days ago and fixed a number of mistakes, and then re-uploaded it to Amazon, Smashwords, and Createspace. I was reading Dracula last night and got so inspired! I love that book. Beautifully written, intelligent, and engrossing. But I get lost sometimes reading it. That's why I like simple books. What I care most is that my writing is not pretty, but super easy to understand. So much, in fact, that the reader forgets they are reading words. That should ultimately be the goal of any writer, I believe.

In Witherheart, one vampire dominates the entire book. His name is Cane. Well, I wouldn't say he dominates the book in screen time. What I mean is that he's the main villain. He was inspired somewhat by Dracula and another character called Nicholas in Anya Seton's Dragonwyck. Now don't get me wrong. Cane comes close to neither character in terms of development or intelligence. I'm not good enough a writer to capture the feeling of those characters, however I do like Cane. I like him a lot. There's so much back story in Witherheart I didn't get to put in the book, not to cheat the reader out of background, but because I just didn't see a place for it without having to force it in there. I'm loosely thinking about making a second book, but right now the main thing I care about is Dragons of Witchcraft.

The third book is long overdue, and for the first time in months I find myself getting super excited about the outcome of the story. I'm compelled by my characters again. So many seeds were planted in the first and second book, hints of things that were given no explanation. All those things come to fruition in the third book, including bits of things that appeared in the first book that the reader probably thought had no meaning at all.

Witherheart Available on Amazon and Paperback

My original intent was to upload Witherheart for free, granted you sign up for an e-list first. I would still like to have an e-list for you to sign up for, however I think I will be uploading Witherheart on Amazon anyway. New information and updates on releases will still be the main focus of the e-list, which I hope a lot of people will take advantage of.

With Witherheart done I can now begin concentrating on the third book in the DOW series, though I admit that should have been my main intent from the beginning. But damn, I needed a break from that series. With two books finished, I'm  more than ready to finish it. Like I said, I've missed my characters. When I'm more confident about the material I already have, I'll be more than happy to upload a few free chapters either through my e-list or directly onto the blog.

Witherheart, just like DOW will be available in book form through createspace, so look out for that as well.

Witherheart--DONE

64000 words and Witherheart is done. It took me a month. I will give myself a week to edit it, and then I'll fuse it into my Aweber confirmation page. I'm so happy. Nonstop writing everyday for a month. It was pretty fun and I'm happy with the way it turned out. I do wish I could sell it, but I already promised that I would put it our free, and I will. I would love to have an e-list--definitely. After I'm satisfied that Witherheart can no longer be improved, I'll get off my ass and finish the third book in the Dragons of Witchcraft series. Perhaps I'll make the cover beforehand. Seeing the cover of a book always gives me motivation to finish it. The plot turned out quite different than I expected, but that's okay. Witherheart is a strange name for a boarding house, isn't it? Anjette (main character) thinks so too, as she describes sarcastically "as it had been so poetically dubbed." Lol. Making fun of myself there. I had the image of a gothic tower when I named it, not that there was ever a gothic tower with that name. But if there was, I wouldn't mind living in it.

I read a lot of romantic fiction. Adult romantic fiction. But it feels like I've practically just graduated high school and should be reading something more juvenile. Now I do appreciate juvenile fiction. How can I not when I write about it? I grew up on young adult romantic thriller fiction and fell in love with books like Hunger Games, City of Bones, and the Darkest Powers series. At one point, and I'm not ashamed to admit it, I was a part of the Twilight craze until my senior year.

My favorite book from the adult world so far has been Secret Fire by Johanna Lindsey. She's amazing. Some of her books I hate, but a lot of her books I love too. I've read other harlequin authors as well and I have to say that there's a reason these books are generalized and scorned by male readers. They all have a LOT of similarities.

But hell, the similarities work. They got my attention and had me chomping through Lindsey's entire conquest. Readers will buy books from authors they like. It's that simple. That's why I ache to have more books out. I have two in the process and one already completed, yet not all the way edited. If I play my cards right I hope to have Witherheart out within the next 2 months, the third book in the Dragons of Witchcraft series sometime within the next 3-4 months, and Girl in the globe out sometime after that, even though it's the only one out of the three that actually has a completed rough draft.

I've been watching and rewatching Social Network and Dark Knight lately. They're amazing movies and I love them so much. Dark Knight because, you know, Christopher Nolan is God, and because Social Network I just love. Mark Zuckerberg really did put in an extraordinary amount of work to get facebook going, and that if nothing else is something to be admired. I just love it when people put their hearts into projects that they really believe in.

I myself wish I could work harder. I think I'm stupid for putting so many projects on my list at once, but I have a goal I'm trying to achieve. I'll get there one day!

Witherheart

I'm currently in the process of setting up an e-list. I would like readers to be able to subscribe to a newsletter for information on future books, release dates, and so forth. This is the cover for a new book I'm writing that will soon be offered for free for those who sign up for the newsletter. That vampire novel I mention before? This is the one. It's called Witherheart. It won't be as long as my other books, I'm hoping, nor do I know yet whether the end will leave room for sequels, but I'm anxious to find out. Here is a brief summary of the book for those of you that are interested.

Anjette is the only one who believes her mother has died by the hands of a vampire, one who was also her lover. When three years pass and she is sent to live at boarding house by an aunt who claims she can no longer support four children, things start to happen which lead her to believe that the vampire has not only come back, but he's not done. Witherheart, deemed a retreat for troubled teens, shelters a variety of people who all either seem afraid of her or defer to her, one being a boy named Kegan who she believes will keep her from knowing the truth. Unless she can get around him.

The story is set in Chicago near Lincoln Park during the fall. Anjette will be different from Paige in that she is more reserved and more tactical. Paige I've come to like, so it'll be interesting to see how this new character deals with a chain of events just as mysterious and threatening. Also, it will be from third person perspective.

Finished but Not Really

It’s a glorious thing when one finishes a book. Be it the first time, the third time, or the tenth. Now don’t give me that look—I’m only at #3—and it’s not even the third book in the series. But I’m pleased that it didn’t take me that long to finish this time. Girl in the Globe is 68,000 words, unedited. I expect that number to change by five or so thousand words, up or down. Maybe more. It’s impossible to tell.

I can’t wait to start editing. I’m so excited to start working on the third book in the 3^rd Dragons of Witchcraft series. If you asked me, I couldn’t rightly tell you if it’s going to be the last book. I’ve tried to make it only three books, but we’ll see. For a trilogy they’re not very long books, roughly 70,000 words each. The second one is way longer than the first, but that’s only because more happens and there’s more back story.

In the third book I’m going to try to develop Andre a bit more. I don’t think we see enough of him. Paige even made a comment in the second book about how much more time she spent with Bishop despite being more like Andre. That could either be true or not true. I leave it up to the reader to decide.

I wonder what I’ll do after the next book in the series? I’m really trying to shoot for five books. I’d love to have five books out. Don’t give me the stink eye when I say this, but I’d loooove to write a vampire novel. I don’t think they’re a ruined species yet. Vampires are still the most romantic supernatural creatures to ever exist besides angels. I don’t know if I want to do an angel book. I have reservations about using them (that are in no way religious, mind you, but more literary).